DVDs: Detective Movies

Hammett (1982) had a long and deeply troubled production, with executive producer Francis Ford Coppola eventually reshooting much of what director Wim Wenders had shot. Nevertheless, it stands among the finest hard-boiled detective pictures ever made. Based on a highly fictionalized episode from Dashiell Hammett's life, the film has colorful characters and wonderfully stylized sets. But what makes the movie so special is that it somehow manages to capture the atmosphere and spirit of the great writer's novels - a feat that so many other movies have failed to achieve.

Despite its title, the intermittently entertaining Detective Story (1951) is a weepy melodrama about a New York City police detective battling personal demons and struggling with his shaky marriage. Taken from a stage play, it is set almost exclusively in a single room at a police station, which only emphasizes its inherent claustrophobia and the hopeless overacting of Kirk Douglas in the title role.